I work as a screenwriter for film & TV. In a former life I was a media specialist & campaign ad writer. Follow me on Twitter @MarkHughesFilms; add me on Google+; and read my question and answers about film, comics, and more on Quora.

The Hobbit is a big, bold, beautiful triumph on every level, standing squarely on its own two feet rather than attempting to mimic the style and voice of its predecessors. It is easily one of the year’s best films, and should be a sure nominee for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Editing (Film and Sound).

I believe this newest movie is even better than The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and that’s saying quite a lot, obviously. And contrary to many of the glaringly wrongheaded reviews and assertions I’ve heard from some critics, this film is in fact more accessible to mainstream “non-fanboy” audiences. It is faster paced, there is less lingering on nuances of backstory and world-building details (those things are present, but their telling is remarkably economical and seem to breeze past), the characters are easier to remember and distinguish, and it’s a whole lot funnier. That’s right, I said funnier, and I’ll get to that shortly.

Visually, the film really sets itself apart from the previous trilogy. Just as the storytelling is more lighthearted and brisk, so too is the imagery, filled with rich, bright colors and textures while settling into rhythms of wide shots to close-ups, sweeping back and forth, and lots of swooping in and around complex sets and scenery.

The Lord of the Rings, while often reflecting Jackson‘s preference for approaching scenes from different angles and perspectives, still also utilized a lot of “epic” filmmaking choices for setting up shots and sequencing for a lot of key action and establishing shots, and always maintained a certain awareness of its own ambition and history-making status.

But The Hobbit feels fearless and devoid of self-consciousness about expectations or anything other than excitement at telling its story, and at times almost seems to avoid any obvious choices or traditional perspectives in the approach to action and big reveals. Scene after scene, it’s obvious Jackson decided what he thought would be an awesome way for the action to proceed and to look, and then just figured out how to make that happen, no matter how crazy or complicated it might be.

One major aspect of the visual style of this film is the much-debated 48 frames per second. I’ve heard some reviewers claim it looks like a cheap BBC televised production, but that’s utter nonsense. It looked glorious, a level of detail and clarity that enhanced the colors and texture and movements of every scene. It’s akin to the difference between watching a DVD on a regular television, and a Blu-ray on a flat screen HDTV.

When the movie begins, for a couple of minutes the difference in fluidity of movement, the precision of details and depth, is striking. But very quickly your eyes adapt, and the effect is breathtaking.

A big advantage to the new frame rate is that action scenes, even very fast paced sequences full of quick edits and (in one scene) literally hundreds of characters going in every direction, are never hard to follow or blurred by movement. It’s so crisp and clear that you can take it all in and understand what’s going on despite the scale of some of these sequences. Likewise, this means the 3D effect never lacks clarity or blurs from movement, and the result is a 3D depth into the scenery that is perfect throughout. A moment to comment on that — The Hobbit is one of those films that uses 3D to create a sense of space and weight to scenes, delving into the screen rather than just trying to project items out at the audience.

The Hobbit relies on a lot of CGI, and this too benefits from the 48 fps, adding to the film’s unique visual style. The finest moments of these effects come in three particular sequences: the trolls, the goblins, and the inevitable appearance of Gollum. The most lavish of these involves the goblins and their underground lair teeming with hundreds of the creatures in a complicated labyrinth full of so much detail you could watch it several times and keep finding something new happening in some corner in the background. It is a gorgeous spectacle and Jackson here demonstrates his most elaborate choices for shots and action.

But it is Gollum who truly defines the brilliance of the CGI advances on display in the movie. However great you thought Gollum was previously — and he was indeed — you will be in awe of him here. Andy Serkis needs an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, it’s time for the Academy to cross that nominating threshold and this is the performance to do it. Every CGI character in the film is fully articulated, including flawless mouth movements and lip-syncing that is completely naturalistic. Gollum, however, is in a league all by himself, as real as he could be, the true test of which is that rather than marvel at how realistic he looks and acts and moves, you will simply forget you’re watching CGI.

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Here’s a comment commenting on your comment — Read every other sentence, you’ll notice some words about the acting, the effects, the story, the directing, awards chances, and other things. I give your comment 1.5 stars!

Great review. I came here because of what you said about The Dark Knight Rises. I trust you to paint an accurate picture for us without that bandwagon garbage. You did not disappoint, I am taking myself to see The Hobbit for my birthday.

Well, very much looking forward to seeing it on Saturday. Although, I must say that I thought the Fellowship was the best of the first three.

My critique there comes mainly from my love of Tolkein’s work which, in general, Jackson did a beautiful job bringing to the screen. In some ways, the Fellowship even managed to improve on Tolkein’s story-telling. I may be the only person who would have liked to see Bombadil, but I’m not the only person who loved the way Jackson had Boromir portrayed- he took the hints of temptation that Tolkein had left, and expanded them, ever so subtley, to more fully develop his character. The Fellowship was the best of that trilogy, and one of my favorites of all time.

Brilliant review, it perfectly addressed the unusually strong negativity yet, unlike every other review I’ve read on The Hobbit, actually analysed the film. Every critic that bashes it goes on about the HFR and critiques the film in less than a paragraph. After reading your review I trust that I will find this film amazing and my concerns have been alleviated. Nice job.

Since there is some confusion on the matter, let me try to clarify something. I am writing a review of the film, and I include rebuttals to the main complaints other reviewers are offering up about the film — notably, the length and pacing of the film. As such, when I compare the length of this newest film to the length of the previous films, the point is about comparing the movies, not the books.

If someone claims the movie “The Hobbit” is too long and slow, and claim not enough happens etc in the film, then presumably they would’ve thought the LOTR films were even worse in terms of being “too long” and slow paced and so on. If that is indeed what they thought, then audiences can decide what it says about the reviewer’s opinion of “The Hobbit.” But if the reviewer didn’t in fact think those same things about the LOTR and yet is saying them about “The Hobbit” when it applies even less, then audiences can likewise decide how trustworthy such claims really are, then. Either way, the claims — especially about pacing and “nothing much happening” — contradict what actually goes on in the film, and the claims suggest viewers need to take those complaints with a big helping of salt.

It’s also relevant for audiences to know this film is shorter and faster paced than the LOTR movies, because many people have seen the LOTR trilogy and loved it, and so when they hear reviewers claiming this newest movie is slow and too long etc, the audience needs to have a point of reference — if they didn’t feel LOTR films were long and slow, then they are unlikely to think “The Hobbit” is, either.

And none of that depends on how long the books were. The comparison that’s relevant is the films, because of the nature of the complaints I’m responding to. Likewise, it doesn’t matter if the book was less action-oriented or not — the point is about the claims that the film has slow pacing where nothing much goes on etc. You may not like the faster pacing or the fact the book has been turned into a trilogy etc etc etc, but that’s unrelated to the points in my review regarding addressing the dominant criticisms of this film by reviewers.

I love this review! I really appreciate you giving your objective opinion as well as calling out some of the BS complaints flying around. In my opinion, a lot of it has to do with the fact that some people just can’t wrap their mind around turning one book into three movies. This is especially true if people keep saying that the book isn’t very long to begin with. I think that’s where the initial “it’s too long” stuff comes from. How else can anyone justify the lengths of the LOTR movies and not The Hobbit’s?

Since some deem The Hobbit’s length unnecessary, I think it taints their overall view of the film when it shouldn’t. Not to mention the fact that it’s just part one. I remember seeing mixed reviews of Fellowship drastically changing by the time Return of the King came out. I’ll be interested to see if the same thing happens with The Hobbit.